Ukiah is preparing its roads for Costco

$4.6 million contract for work designed to ease traffic congestion

By
Justine Frederiksen, Ukiah Daily Journal

Tuesday, September 12, 2017

Now that it appears almost certain a Costco warehouse will open next year in Ukiah, the city is moving forward with infrastructure improvements that need to be completed before the store planned for the southern end of Airport Park Boulevard can open.

“We are very excited to get here,” said Tim Eriksen, who serves as both the city’s engineer and director of Public Works, when asking the Ukiah City Council last week to approve both a contract for roadwork and one for inspection services.

Eriksen said the contract for the inspection services ended up being about a third of previous estimates because his department has started doing more and more inspections in-house.

“The half-a-million-dollars difference is because the city is going to be doing most of the on-street inspections, just as we did for the work on Luce, Observatory and Washington avenues,” Eriksen said.

However, Eriksen said staff is still recommending that GHD be hired to inspect certain aspects, such as the reconstructing of Airport Park Boulevard.

“The part that is going from Les Schwab north to the intersection of Talmage Road is going to be using a different type of asphalt, which is a new pavement methodology for us, so we’re glad to have GHD assisting us,” he said, adding that city staff is also going to be very busy coordinating with Caltrans on the Highway 101 interchange improvements, and with Costco officials, as well.

“Costco is going to be opening right about the time we’re done paving, so before that they’re going to want to come in and stock their shelves, so it’s going to be quite the balancing act, and we want as many professionals who have used this system before involved as possible to make things go as smoothly as possible,” he said.

The Ukiah City Council then approved a $251,025 contract with GHD for inspection services, and was also asked to approve a $4.6 million contract with Ghilotti Construction Company of Santa Rosa for the actual work.

Those improvements include adding a traffic signal to the four-way-stop intersection of Airport Park Boulevard and Commerce Drive (near Crush restaurant), widening the intersection of South State Street and Hastings Avenue (near Be-Bop’s Diner), as well as adding a second left-turn lane and other modifications to the already congested intersection of Talmage Road and Airport Park Boulevard.

“The engineer’s estimate was $4.3 million and this bid is $4.6 million, so we always hate it when the engineer wins the bid, but this one is close,” said Eriksen, adding that three of the four bids were within $50,000 of each other, “so we’re really comfortable with this bid.”

“I want to compliment you and your team on the engineer’s estimate,” said Vice-Mayor Kevin Doble. “That’s the tool we have to set things in motion. So if they’re close, that’s great, but if they’re off by a lot, that causes problems down the road.”

Earlier this year, the City Council approved borrowing about $4 million from I-Bank in order to pay for much of the improvements, which are designed to mitigate the traffic problems likely to be created by the opening of Costco.

Money to pay for these improvements was previously borrowed by the city’s redevelopment agency in 2011, but after the state’s redevelopment agencies were dissolved, state officials blocked the use of that money.

The City Council voted unanimously to award the contract to Ghilotti. Eriksen said the bidding process for the Highway 101 work would begin early this week.